Since electricity was not yet invented during colonial times, people relied on candles for light. To make candlelight more attractive, colonists often set their candles in decorative luminaries made of tin. Have your students create their own punched tin luminaries during your colonial unit. Remove the labels and clean out empty tin cans. Invite students to create designs for their luminaries on pieces of paper. Provide students with tin cans filled with frozen water and have them tape their designs onto the outside of their cans. Using a nail, children punch through the design they have drawn, transferring the image to the can. After decorating their tin cans, empty out the ice, set tea lights inside and turn off the lights so that kids can view their creations.
During the colonial period, early Americans wrote with quill pens. Have your students make their own quill pens. To prepare the quill, stick the ends into hot sand for a few minutes to dry and soften them. Have your students select a feather. Use a craft knife to cut one-quarter inch from the back and one-half inch from the front of the quill. Cut a slit in the back of the quill and cut away the sides to create a point. After cutting the points in the quills, offer them to students and have them dip the points into ink and let them try writing with them.
Colonists used pomander balls to scent the air in their homes. In order to make a pomander ball, provide each of your students with an apple, orange, lemon or lime. Set out bowls of cloves and instruct students to press the cloves into the surface of the fruit. After covering, or almost covering, their fruits, cut a length of decorative ribbon and tie it around the fruit. Tie the end of the ribbon into a loop. The loop can be used to hang the pomander balls.
Before cameras were invented, silhouette images were commonly used to capture the image of people. To create a silhouette, hang a piece of black paper on a wall and invite a student to stand in front of it so that her profile is facing the piece of paper. Shine a light on the student and use white chalk to trace her profile onto the black paper. Have the student cut out her silhouettes, glue it onto a piece of white paper and use construction paper to create a frame for it.